The best day off for me would be plane spotting – fighter jet spotting is even better. Today Andy and I went to Warton, one of BAe Systems’ bases. This is the best place to spot Eurofighter Typhoon, but today we got a bonus. Harrier GR9, who is also based here, flew around, did a few touch-and-go and even practiced hovering and vertical take off and landing.
One of the experts there told me that it was the first time of this year that the Harrier flew over Warton. What a great day...!
I know plane spotting sounds pathetic for many ‘normal’ people… but I guess I was and am never ‘normal’ anyway. Plane spotting is brilliant!! It could be a consolation after a very rough day or week. Even when it is only watching commercial planes near Manchester Airport – or Jakarta Soekarno Hatta, or anywhere in the world. (In fact, I have a favourite place near Manchester Airport which I will write about soon)
The great thing about hanging out near a runway and waiting for exciting planes to take off or landing, is meeting people who have the same passion as me. It is a different world than the everyday world at work. It is a world of forever being a child with great fascination of anything flying with loud noise. It is a world of human achievement – flying an iron bird against all odds.
But more than anything, it is MY childhood world. For each time I watch an aeroplane taking off or landing, I suddenly became this four-year-old girl again, in my dad’s VW Beetle at the end of the runway of Kemayoran Airport, just me and my hero my dad. And now, I am lucky that Andy enjoys taking me to runways and airports to watch these iron birds. He is my soulmate.
So, no matter what life would bring, as long as there are planes to watch – with Andy beside me – everything will be “..a okay….!!”
Watching planes is GREAT!
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Greenpeace campaign to save Indonesian rainforest from the greedy Unilever
I feel like I should do more than just posing, sending messages to Unilever bosses (their addresses can be found in Greenpeace website) and stop buying Unilever products. Because the victims there are not just the orangutans but the real "orang" (human beings)! How many villages destroyed to cater for our obsession of silky soaps?
Plus palm oil plantation would use all the top soil and destroy the land. I am no expert on biology, but I understand that our soil can only cater for a certain amount of plants and it needs rotation between different plants. Monocultural way of planting is horrible. Why can't we ever learn from the native tribes in rainforests all over the worl on how to conserve and not being greedy?
This picture is taken by Greenpeace campaign in Manchester, April 2008 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/stopdove/2449863740/). More pictures of people supporting Greenpeace in protest against Dove destroying the reainforest can be found in http://www.flickr.com/photos/stopdove/2449863740/
And this is Greepeace's message:
"The people in this photo have joined Greenpeace's campaign to convince Dove that they should stop destroying rainforests for palm oil and help protect endangered species like orang-utans - so can you. Palm oil - one of the ingredients in Dove soap - is devastating the rainforests of Indonesia as they're torn down to make room for huge oil palm plantations. In fact, these rainforests are being destroyed faster than any other in the world largely because of the demand for this oil, putting rare animals such as Sumatran tigers, Javan rhinoceroses and orang-utans in even greater danger. This destruction also releases massive amounts of greenhouse gases which are accelerating climate change. Unilever, the company that makes Dove, needs to clean up their act. Make sure they see this photo by clicking 'send to a friend' below and sending it to Patrick Cescau, Group Chief Executive of Unilever at patrick.cescau@unilever.com, then find out what else you can do at www.greenpeace.org.uk/dove."
Plus palm oil plantation would use all the top soil and destroy the land. I am no expert on biology, but I understand that our soil can only cater for a certain amount of plants and it needs rotation between different plants. Monocultural way of planting is horrible. Why can't we ever learn from the native tribes in rainforests all over the worl on how to conserve and not being greedy?
This picture is taken by Greenpeace campaign in Manchester, April 2008 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/stopdove/2449863740/). More pictures of people supporting Greenpeace in protest against Dove destroying the reainforest can be found in http://www.flickr.com/photos/stopdove/2449863740/
And this is Greepeace's message:
"The people in this photo have joined Greenpeace's campaign to convince Dove that they should stop destroying rainforests for palm oil and help protect endangered species like orang-utans - so can you. Palm oil - one of the ingredients in Dove soap - is devastating the rainforests of Indonesia as they're torn down to make room for huge oil palm plantations. In fact, these rainforests are being destroyed faster than any other in the world largely because of the demand for this oil, putting rare animals such as Sumatran tigers, Javan rhinoceroses and orang-utans in even greater danger. This destruction also releases massive amounts of greenhouse gases which are accelerating climate change. Unilever, the company that makes Dove, needs to clean up their act. Make sure they see this photo by clicking 'send to a friend' below and sending it to Patrick Cescau, Group Chief Executive of Unilever at patrick.cescau@unilever.com, then find out what else you can do at www.greenpeace.org.uk/dove."
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Heathrow Terminal 5 Viasco
I had a big laugh about this news (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7320497.stm).
It has been days since it was open and everything was chaotic. The bagage system was horrible, hundreds of flights were cancelled, people slept all over the terminal, all passengers are angry.
They have to learn from the Singaporeans (who were British slaves and colony) who are doing very well in Changi. Or even learn from Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta Airport. English people can look down at third world people and deport all immigrants, but it turned up they cannot do the job themselves. hahahahahahahaha.....
If I had the power to make a change, I would replace the sophisticated computerised baggage system with labour intensive system. Meaning: rather than invest £4billion on machine, they should have employed migrant workers as porters to carry the luggage from terminal to planes and vice versa. Just like those porters in Medan Airport, Ngurah Rai dan Banda Aceh airport.. After all, there is no machine can replace human labour.
I am just trying to remember when Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta (CGK) opened in 1985. I don't think there was any chaos as big as Heathrow now. Hmmm... and people here call Indonesia a 'third world' country? Hmmm...
Let's dig in to Garuda's on-time-performance archieve. Has BA broken Garuda's record in just 3 days? Wow.. Congratulations British Airways! Congratulations BAA! Maybe BA's staff need to have work experience with Garuda and BAA staff with Angkasa Pura..
It has been days since it was open and everything was chaotic. The bagage system was horrible, hundreds of flights were cancelled, people slept all over the terminal, all passengers are angry.
They have to learn from the Singaporeans (who were British slaves and colony) who are doing very well in Changi. Or even learn from Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta Airport. English people can look down at third world people and deport all immigrants, but it turned up they cannot do the job themselves. hahahahahahahaha.....
If I had the power to make a change, I would replace the sophisticated computerised baggage system with labour intensive system. Meaning: rather than invest £4billion on machine, they should have employed migrant workers as porters to carry the luggage from terminal to planes and vice versa. Just like those porters in Medan Airport, Ngurah Rai dan Banda Aceh airport.. After all, there is no machine can replace human labour.
I am just trying to remember when Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta (CGK) opened in 1985. I don't think there was any chaos as big as Heathrow now. Hmmm... and people here call Indonesia a 'third world' country? Hmmm...
Let's dig in to Garuda's on-time-performance archieve. Has BA broken Garuda's record in just 3 days? Wow.. Congratulations British Airways! Congratulations BAA! Maybe BA's staff need to have work experience with Garuda and BAA staff with Angkasa Pura..
Friday, February 29, 2008
Have you ever heard of "Diego Garcia?"
No, it is not a man's name. It is an island, part of the Chagos archipelago and belong to British Indian Ocean Teritory (BIOT).
The shoking thing about that name is what happened to its population. Within the 1960s, the Anglo-American decided that this island was perfect for American military base. So to cut the long story short, they (British Foreing Office and its overseas governors and soldiers) shipped the whole 2,000 individuals out of their homes into the unknown Mauritius. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depopulation_of_Diego_Garcia
I am just reading this story in John Pilger's Freedom Next Time chapter one "Stealing a Nation". So I am no expert in this part of the oppressed world history. But this story makes me wonder...
Does my partner Andy who is English know about this? Has he ever heard about the forced depopulation by his government? If yes, what version has he heard it? I shall ask him tonight.
This brings me to the thought of Timor Leste. I was lied to by my government and my history and social sciences teachers (I am sure most of my teachers were lied to as well). I grew up believing that in 1975 when I was 3, my government come to save the Timorese people from the ‘evil’ Portuguese coloniser.
Only in my early 20s that I learned that it was not true. My very government invaded the land. We were not the heroes, we were the baddies! Just then that I realised that history is just a construct written by the powerful and the winner.
With that I realised that the 'Indonesian communist upheavel' film (Gerakan 30S-PKI) that we had been watching all our lives every 30th October was not history. It was a story told by one side – the winner who ran the country and controlled the media.
By now I know very intimately that there is almost no justice in the world. It is just daily fact that we accept and then from time to time we fight against. But to accept one history book as The History... I think it is wrong. (After all, it is not only "his" story, not even "her" story, it should be "our and their" stories). I will make sure that when my son start learning the modern history of Britain, he will read the stories of the forcedly evicted people of Diego Garcia - just like I've shown him the other side of the Indonesian history.
I am going back to my reading. I once hoped to be someone like John Pilger who tells the story of the voiceless people, the 'unpeople' as he puts it. I am not sure about that hope anymore as I am now an unwanted non-European living in Britain with my unmarried partner. But one thing I am sure, is that I should never forget the stories of the 'unpeople' that I have met.
The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting (Milan Kundera as quoted by John Pilger)
The shoking thing about that name is what happened to its population. Within the 1960s, the Anglo-American decided that this island was perfect for American military base. So to cut the long story short, they (British Foreing Office and its overseas governors and soldiers) shipped the whole 2,000 individuals out of their homes into the unknown Mauritius. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depopulation_of_Diego_Garcia
I am just reading this story in John Pilger's Freedom Next Time chapter one "Stealing a Nation". So I am no expert in this part of the oppressed world history. But this story makes me wonder...
Does my partner Andy who is English know about this? Has he ever heard about the forced depopulation by his government? If yes, what version has he heard it? I shall ask him tonight.
This brings me to the thought of Timor Leste. I was lied to by my government and my history and social sciences teachers (I am sure most of my teachers were lied to as well). I grew up believing that in 1975 when I was 3, my government come to save the Timorese people from the ‘evil’ Portuguese coloniser.
Only in my early 20s that I learned that it was not true. My very government invaded the land. We were not the heroes, we were the baddies! Just then that I realised that history is just a construct written by the powerful and the winner.
With that I realised that the 'Indonesian communist upheavel' film (Gerakan 30S-PKI) that we had been watching all our lives every 30th October was not history. It was a story told by one side – the winner who ran the country and controlled the media.
By now I know very intimately that there is almost no justice in the world. It is just daily fact that we accept and then from time to time we fight against. But to accept one history book as The History... I think it is wrong. (After all, it is not only "his" story, not even "her" story, it should be "our and their" stories). I will make sure that when my son start learning the modern history of Britain, he will read the stories of the forcedly evicted people of Diego Garcia - just like I've shown him the other side of the Indonesian history.
I am going back to my reading. I once hoped to be someone like John Pilger who tells the story of the voiceless people, the 'unpeople' as he puts it. I am not sure about that hope anymore as I am now an unwanted non-European living in Britain with my unmarried partner. But one thing I am sure, is that I should never forget the stories of the 'unpeople' that I have met.
The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting (Milan Kundera as quoted by John Pilger)
Thursday, February 28, 2008
John Pilger's book "Freedom Next Time"
I just started reading this book. Really eye-opening. Living in England has made me 'lazy' and almost forgot my root, and about what happened and still happening in the 'third world' whre I came from. This book reminds me (and hopefully will remind all of its reader) that there are injustice everywhere and we should not deny it just because we are living a nice comfortable lives. Imperialism and exploitation are still present and the mainstream Western media is too lazy (or too coward) to cover these.
God save people in third world countries...!!! (even though I am sceptical about the concept of 'God')
God save people in third world countries...!!! (even though I am sceptical about the concept of 'God')
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